Its been a long time since a posted a tai chi post. I really should do so more often. Here’s another great video of Master Ma Yue Liang, doing pushing hands. See also my previous post about Master Ma, with some background on him and a longer clip.

Grandmaster Ma Yue Liang was the son-in-law and the best known disciple of Wu Chien Chuan, the founder of Wu style taiji. He truely was one of the last remaining great Chinese martial arts masters of old. Master Ma was jailed by the Maoists during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but continued to teach tai chi in Shanghai, China, right up until his death at the age of 97, in 1998. The following video shows Master Ma giving a pushing hands demonstration when he was already 93 years old.

Thanks to JW for this one. The original can be found at the Rocky Mountain Tai Chi Chuan site.

The Word “Relax” in Tai Chi Ch’uan

Cheng Man Ch’ing

I have been practicing Tai-Chi Chuan for over fifty years. Only two years ago that I started to understand the word “relax”. I remember my Tai-Chi Chuan teacher Yang Cheng-Fu who did not like to talk much and he used to sit all day without saying a word if no one asked him questions. However, in our T’ai-chi class he would tell us to “relax” repeatedly. Sometimes it seemed like he would say the word hundreds of times during the practice so that the word could fill up my ears. Strangely enough he also said that if he did not tell me of this word that I would not be able to learn T’ai-chi in three life-times (meaning never). I doubted his words then. Now that I think back, I truly believe that if he did not keep reminding me of the word “relax”, I doubt if I could have learned T’ai-chi Chuan in six life-times.

What is the meaning of “relax” in T’ai-chi? Here is an example to help you understand the word. When we go visit a Buddhist temple we usually see a statue of Me-Lo Buddha. The one who has a big rounded stomach with a big smile on his face. He carries a large bag on his shoulder. On top of this statue we see a motto: “Sit with a bag. Walk with a bag. It would be such a relief to drop the bag.” What does all this mean? To me, a person himself or herself is a bag. Everything he or she owns is baggage, including one’s children, family, position and wealth. It is difficult to drop any of one’s baggage, especially the “self” bag.

T’ai-chi Chuan is difficult to learn. To relax in practicing T’ai-chi Chuan is the most difficult phase to go through. To relax a person’s mind is the most significant obstacle to overcome in practicing T’ai-Chi. It takes a great effort to train and exercise one’s mind to relax (or drop one’s “self” bag).

For the last few weeks I’ve been doing Tai Chi every morning in Centennial Park. Here are some photos from one of these mornings recently.

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